The Cigna 7 Chicago-Jennifer's Story

One woman's story, from the Chicago Cigna 7 rally.
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Join the movement nationwide on Thursday, October 15, 2009.

US Healthcare History: Our Very Own Killing Fields
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/17-0?


Jenny Fritts was 24 years old. Jenny lived with her husband Sean for the past five years, and together they had a little girl named Kylee, 2. Jenny was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child - a beautiful, baby girl.

Jenny is dead. Jenny's unborn baby is dead. They died because they were turned away for appropriate care at a for-profit hospital because they did not have health insurance. Sean rushed Jenny back to another hospital when her symptoms became even more severe, and he lied about having insurance to get her in the door. She was placed on a respirator in intensive care, but she didn't make it. She died. And so did her baby.

They become two more of the more than 45,000 Americans who die preventable deaths due to our broken healthcare system every year. Two more. Mother and child.

And the tragedy doesn't end there. Sean has been very depressed since he lost Jenny and their baby. The rest of his family and friends are worried about him. But he cannot get treatment either. He doesn't have insurance. (You can watch their story here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td802aj-7Sc) Imagine how you might feel. Imagine.

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So, what is our Congress waiting for? And our President? Have they so detached themselves from Sean's reality, from Rich's struggle for air and from Amanda's failing health that they think this debate is about excise taxes and re-election prospects?

This is no political contest. This is very real life and death. Mothers and babies. Young and old. The profit-takers know no boundaries for their greed, and our killing fields are filling with the innocents.

We apparently do not understand that this is no different than an external enemy attacking our citizens and killing 120 of them every single day. What would we be doing? Would we repel that aggressor? Would we protect civilian lives? I don't know that answer to that as we apparently think it acceptable to allow Jenny and her baby to die. And they were just two that day - 118 others died too just on that day alone.

The media should cover Jenny's death and her baby's death with as much intensity as any boy in a balloon drifting over the Rockies. When we are forced to confront what we are allowing to happen in homes and clinics and hospitals all across this land, we will perhaps find it less easy to dismiss as anomaly.